Life and Work with Laura Smith

Today we’d like to introduce you to Laura Smith.

Laura, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Five years prior to starting my company, I was 18 years old, pregnant, and homeless. I was deeply determined to provide my son with a good life and worked two jobs until I was back on my feet. Then, I enrolled at Front Range Community College and later transferred to CSU. My intention was to go to law school.

One day, when my son was five, I took him and his infant brother to The Butterfly Pavilion on my day off. On the drive down my companion and I were discussing how much my husband hated his current job, and she suggested he start a cleaning service instead. I thought it was a fabulous idea and ran straight home to tell him. He immediately said no. Being the stubborn woman I am, I said fine, I’ll do it. A week later All-Star was born.

Fairly quickly, I got so busy with the company that I left school. I expected it was just a semester break until things slowed down. It never did! 13 years later, law school is off the table, but that’s okay. I was born to be an entrepreneur!

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has most definitely not been a smooth road. I was so young at the time and I had never been in a management position before. Learning to manage people was a huge learning curve for me that slowed us down for longer than I care to admit! Learning to manage money was another challenge. The larger the amounts of money I was handling became, the more terrified I became, and I think I subconsciously held us back. My advice for young women just getting started would definitely be to invest in yourself and take some high-quality trainings on these two issues as early in your business as possible.

Please tell us about All Star Cleaning Services.
We are an all-natural, eco-friendly house cleaning company. The thing that I think sets us apart from most services is our focus on client feedback. We survey after every single clean. With one click our clients can let us know how their service was. The software keeps track of trends so we can tell the difference between someone that always gives 4 out of 5 stars because they believe there is always room for improvement and someone that normally gives 5 stars but gave 4 stars this week so something changed. We also can track the feedback rating by an employee as well to know the best employees and those who need more training. We can also watch trend data to see those that are getting better and those that may be slipping, noticing sometimes they have a problem before even before the employees know they do.

The thing I am the proudest of is my company’s focus on being a great employer. We offer industry-leading pay and benefits including health, dental, and vision insurance, a company-matching 401k, up to two weeks paid time off, and company cars. In addition, we provide weekly feedback reports to our cleaners on the key measures of success in our company so our employees always know exactly where they stand. We have a shared company-wide goal each month and if that goal is achieved, which is almost always is, we have an “All-Star Date Night” which the employees vote on what they want to do as a team. We also have what we call “fix it Friday”, where we work through any employee concerns by problem-solving as a group. But most importantly, we teach them that there is dignity and value in the services we provide. We take great care of them, and they take great care of our clients.

There’s a wealth of academic research that suggests that a lack of mentors and networking opportunities for women has materially affected the number of women in leadership roles. Smart organizations and industry leaders are working to change this, but in the meantime, do you have any advice for finding a mentor and building a network?
Connecting with others in your industry is so important, and easier than ever these days! I am in probably at least 10 Facebook groups for the cleaning industry, as well as marketing, general business ownership, etc. I also attend multiple events per year through my trade association. I definitely would not be where I was today if it was not for the time I invested in befriending people who were already doing what I aspired to.

When looking to form beneficial relationships with my peers, I’ve always tried to lead with value. When I couldn’t find a mastermind group, I started one and ran it for many years. When I wanted to meet some new people with larger businesses last year, I put on a completely free event in Fort Collins called the native genius summit. I invited large cleaning services from all over the country, and the only requirement to attend as they had to give a 45-minute presentation on an area of business they excel at – their native genius. It was a huge success and I left that weekend with nearly 20 new mentors in different areas of my business.

Contact Info:

• Address: 120 W Saturn Drive Suite B, Fort Collins, CO 80525
• Website: https://cleaningallstars.com/
• Phone: (970) 215-2224
• Email: laura@cleaningallstars.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AllStarCleaning/

Image Credit:
KJean Photography

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